My youngest daughter is five
She is enthusiastic in the way that only a five-year-old can be.
She is also hopeless in the way that only a five-year-old can be.
The other day I took her to the library, she loves books, particularly if they have lots of pictures of fairy princesses with long blonde hair and pink dresses. My daughter has long blonde hair and her fair share of pink princess dresses, I will leave the rest to your imagination.
We returned her borrowed books and I asked the librarian if that was everything.
“No, you have forgotten Aerial and the Secret of the Pink Dress” came the reply
I asked my daughter where it was.
“I left it on the train to Grannie’s house” was her blunt response.
My time for a fine
Here we go, I thought. Time to pay the over inflated fine for lost books and disgraceful citizenship.
I asked the librarian how much it would be.
“How old is your daughter?”
“Five”
“Oh there isn’t a fine, if they are five or under we don’t impose one, and up to the age of ten we only ask for half of the price of the book”
Now I was impressed
It would have been very easy for the library to fleece me for the cost of some new stock, this was after all an underfunded inner city council outpost that needed all the money it get, but it didn’t.
The reason they didn’t was simple. They were clear about their purpose:
To inspire the enjoyment of books and reading
If you are hell-bent on “inspiring the enjoyment of books and reading” a really, really good place to start is letting children borrow books to read, and a really, really good way to convince people not to borrow books is to fine them whenever they lose one, which is precisely what children do.
Clarity of purpose is the table stake
You have to be crystal clear what you are here to do, but that is just the start. Once you are clear then you should line up every last one of your processes, polices, procedures, rules and regulations against that purpose.
I bang on about clarity of purpose endlessly. I just never expected to see a fabulous example from my local council.
Shame on me.
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Nice one James…of course some businesses would still put a “books lost” performance target in your daughter’s balanced scorecard regardless! :-)
And books paid for, and recovery rate…
James,
This reminds me a bit of Chris Zane’s approach at his bike shop. I’m a huge believer in (building) trust in business and in process improvement … or as you say: “…line up every last one of your processes, polices, procedures, rules and regulations against that purpose.”
Annette :-)
I’m not sure about the trust thing Annette, my daughter could be an international library book thief.
Hi James,
Great story and great example that there is great practice in all areas of life. We just have to look for it and be open to its lessons.
Adrian
Hello James,
The following really speaks to me:
“You have to be crystal clear what you are here to do, but that is just the start. Once you are clear then you should line up every last one of your processes, polices, procedures, rules and regulations against that purpose.”
Thank you for sharing such a great example. Just goes to show the value of keeping our minds open and looking for what works instead of assuming nothing works.
All the best
Maz